persons of the year

i never took pictures of people. i think i was scared of people. i mean, they're strange and threatening creatures what with their talking and hugging and other societal idiosyncrasies. then you realize, oh they're pretty photogenic and entertaining in their own right.

that's all it boils down to. people. love em or hate, we're all in this together so make the best of it. and if you try a bit more, you get a lot more. so thanks, you people. you're number one on my nonexistent year end list.

mixed blessings

so that ascent? check. i'm there. we're there, i mean. we can sit back on a rock under the moon and the stars and just bask in the radiance. luckily there was one last christmas/holiday/solstice party to wrap up the year before i've come back home. now we play the waiting game, but what better way to kill time for a week other than christmas. and it'll be that magically strange week between december 25th and january 1st where the calendar just hangs in the cosmic purgatory. how enchanting.

my dad was diagnosed with cancer. and it took everything in both of us to even bring it up today. this dates back to the mid summer nights phone call concerning his blood clots. in the scope of things, i guess it's relatively worry free, being lance armstrong cancer and all. my dad even went bicycling on his old italian speeder this week, i guess in preparation for the tour. but there's a few more tests and a range of treatment ahead of him so i should get used to talking about it with him. and maybe get used to talking about women. we aren't much for such sharing but there comes a time when you have to fight against your instincts.

happy holy days

on the other side of the year, time in san antonio is wrapping up. in the grand wish list of it all, i'm getting some closure, but wishes aren't so great if you always get what you asked for. it leaves something to be desired. each week is more interesting than the previous and it's good to have this constant momentum towards something but at the end of the day you want to reach a plateau and look back at the ascent in a breathless well deserved daze. at the end of the year. at the end of the fuse a bomb goes off or a fuse just goes out. fireworks also apply. you know, on account of the new year.

and cruelly enough, the days get shorter. and the nights get longer. and the druids dress as fairies in celebration of it all.

up the mountain

and one year ago i watched that gradual sunset over the atlantic. unspoken plans of matching the experiences i had in europe with life in america have been a success. fall 2005 might even trump 2004 in its own slow and methodical way. another round of college students heads out into the real world and i'll just bide my time here a bit longer.

winter jitters

there comes a time when you have to fight your instincts and climb a giant rock in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night in the mid to low twenties. that time is now.

generation i

i don't have an ipod. and i'd be fine for the rest of my life if i never owned one, but there is some inner child pulling at my pant leg saying, "i want." i am entranced by apple hardware. but i feel like i'm winning some great cultural battle by not having one thus far. those little white ear buds might as well be yellow stars singling out the youth of the nation. listen to deathcab, watch laguna beach, and wear over sized jLo glasses. maybe it's me taking this 7 month career-in-a-box vacation, but i feel disconnected from the kids.

more of it is that the kids listen to their ipods 24/7. do you really need music piped in at all times? has the world become that boring? there's so much entertainment/information available on demand whenever we want it, that's there's little time left to walk down the street and enjoy it for its own sake. i guess my eureka moment was losing my tv remote. sure i tried to find it and had the couch turned upside down, but i gave up and have been all the better ever since. who is america's next top model? and why do we care?

somehow i had also managed to sidestep the whole text messaging movement. who is sending these to whom? can my phone even receive them? these are the questions i asked my mom two weeks ago, and then the telephonic gods stepped up and i've since received six different messages from various sources. it's fate.

maybe i've led my mother to believe i might possibly want a 30 gig music/photo/video player while claiming that i "was not an ipod person." i mean come on, i'm adding to the information ether with this little blog so i might as well cast off my old fashioned chains and plug into the white plastic grid. i can still avoid dvr and satellite radio...for now. i'm no simple farm boy. the elephant in the room we're all avoiding is that i lost a remote control in a twelve foot square space and i plan to take a $300 remote with a screen out into the world on a daily basis. if my conflicted christmas wish does come true, the fates will ultimately decide if i was to be one of the youth of the nation. cast the ivory walkman into the wind. we're all gonna be old one day so i might as well start now.